Unraveling the drivers of amphibian community distribution at a lowland–mountain interface: A joint modeling approach
(2026) Ecosphere — Vol. 17, n° 9, p. null-null (2026)
Files
Ecosphere - 2026 - Flego - Unraveling the drivers of amphibian community distribution at a lowland mountain interface.pdf
Open Access - Adobe PDF
- 12.19 MB
Details
- Authors
Funk, Alice 
- Abstract
- Understanding how environmental and biotic processes jointly shape species distributions and community composition is a central goal in ecology. Although species distribution models (SDMs) have become essential tools for quantifying environmental drivers of occurrence, their single-species framework limits inference about interspecific relationships and community-level patterns. Joint species distribution models (JSDMs) are multispecies distribution models which explicitly acknowledge the multivariate nature of communities, modeling all species at once and considering their interactions. They can be the basis for further community analysis, such as bioregionalization, supplying further insights to ecologically understand and manage a study area. Despite their potential, these methodologies are rarely applied, especially regarding terrestrial vertebrates and small geographical scale. Here, we integrated JSDMs with a data-driven bioregionalization approach (regions of common profile, RCPs), to explore the determinants of amphibian assemblages and their spatial turnover at a local scale. We applied this framework to 10 amphibian taxa in Oltrepò Pavese (northern Italy), a heterogeneous landscape at the interface between the Po Plain and the Northern Apennines. We specifically investigated the environmental drivers of species distribution and the residual co-occurrence patterns, relying on the framework Hierarchical Modelling of Species Communities (HMSC). Then, the predicted joint occurrences were used to bioregionalize the study area. Species showed differential effects of environmental covariates. Significant co-occurrence patterns were highlighted, mostly attributable to factors not explicitly included in the model, such as the type of breeding site. We identified three RCPs, with distinct amphibian assemblages: a lowland region, dominated by farmland adapted species ; a transitional one which lies in the lower Apennine and hosts widespread species, quite tolerant but probably not enough for the over-exploited Po plain; and a mountain region with microtherm and forest amphibians. Alarmingly, the
- Affiliations
Citations
Flego, M., Funk, A., Dadda, T., Rumo, V., Sacchi, R., & Mangiacotti, M. (2026). Unraveling the drivers of amphibian community distribution at a lowland–mountain interface: A joint modeling approach. Ecosphere, 17(9), null-null. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70747 (Original work published 2026)